CEDAR CITY, Utah - Jan. 10 - Southern Utah women's basketball nearly
led wire to wire as the Thunderbirds captured a key 68-52 Summit League
victory over UMKC on Saturday night. The win improves SUU to 6-9 on
the season while UMKC drops to 7-9. Both teams drew even in the
conference standings with 2-3 records.
"We worked on stepping to things, rebounds, passes, during practice this week and the girls did a great job tonight," interim head coach Kit Janes said after the game. "We told them the game would be a scrappy affair and that is really what it turned out to be."
Anne Westwood Higbee scored the first points of the game, giving the Thunderbirds a lead that they would only surrender twice during the game. UMKC had advantages of 6-7 and 9-10 early in the first half, but Southern Utah captured the lead on a Morgan Slade jumper with 10:31 in the first half and never looked back.
The T-Birds build a lead of as much as 14 during the first half as Caitlyn Sears' 3-point bucket gave the home team a 31-17 advantage with 3:03 on the game clock. The long-range bomb was one of three for Sears during the evening as she led the Thunderbirds with a career-high 20 points.
Southern Utah continued to lead throughout the second half with the Kangaroos getting to within four on two occasions. UMKC's last run pulled the score to within 49-53, but the Thunderbirds countered with a 15-3 run over the final four minutes of the game to seal the victory.
Freshman Dani Hosking scored a career-high 12 points, joining Sears in double figures as Higbee pulled down a season-high 11 rebounds to complete her double-double with 16 points. UMKC's Chazny Morris led all scorers with 26 points, but didn't get any help from teammates as the next highest Kangaroo scorer turned in six points.
Southern Utah did not go too deep into the bench during the night, using only eight players with Higbee playing a season-high 34 minutes and Sears tying her season high of 37 minutes.
The Thunderbirds will be back on the road in their next contest when SUU travels north on I-15 for a game with Utah Valley University. Tip-off for that game is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. with Southern Utah looking for its first road win of the season.
